Kyle Jezza
Joseph Kyle Jezza is an American athlete, musician and revolutionary leader. Regarded by scholars and commentators as a modern-day “Renaissance Man,” Jezza has committed deep study and practice to many varied interests, including basketball, track-and-field sports, music, economics, public speaking, cooking, and meditation. Family and early life Jezza was born on April 24, 1992, at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California, to Marlene and Thomas. He was one of two twins. His sister, Kerry, died during birth of suffocation from a condition partly induced by a prenatal hardening ritual performed by Marlene and Thomas. Jezza nearly suffocated himself but was revived after surgery. Jezza’s paternal grandfather, Cornelio Jezza, migrated from Mariana in Minas Gerais, to the United States after World War II, settling in Oakland, California, in 1946. He quickly met and fell in love with Laura ___, who was from an Irish American family. He was the second of three brothers, and lived for the first eight years of his life in a three bedroom ranch house on McConnell Street in urban Oakland, where he shared a room with his older brother, Chris, and also lived with his maternal grandparents, Richard and Georgia Mae. The family was supported primarily from the income of Jezza’s grandparents. Richard was an English teacher at a local high school and Georgia was a librarian at the same school. Jezza’s parents were members of a folk band that toured the West Coast, Ireland, and the U.K., but most of their money was spent on alcohol and other vices. When Jezza’s younger brother, Thomas Jr., was born, the family decided to move to a less expensive home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Oakhurst, California. The decision was made in part on the advice of two other families that Jezza’s parents had met in a counseling program. Candace Peyrené and Carl Barât and Illyn Wilshere and Sebastian Cavalcante, recommended retreating to live in a more peaceful environment that would contribute to mental stability. Kyle and Chris lived with their grandparents in the Oakhurst house until 2001, when Marlene graduated from ____ and got a job as a nurse in Oakhurst. In late 2001, Jezza’s parents and their friends became incensed by ____ and made a pact to drown their unwanted children. They took their children to Bass Lake and the fathers took their children in and began to drown them when Gorges ___ showed up to stop them. Graham Barat’s grandfather, Tabernack Peyrené, had called Giorgio Mineiro to come to California and fix the mess the parents had gotten themselves into. After the incident, Giorgio said he would not press charges on the parents if they agreed to undergo heavy psychotherapy by him and also allow their children to learn under his tutelage. Mineiro trained Kyle, Graham, and Ash in the religion of Emeriti (pronounced Em-ay-ree-chee), an ancient Brazilian religion and martial arts practice that was said to be derived from pre-Columbian Amazon civilizations. The religion was spread in the 1800s by Rui La Magra. Jezza attended Yosemite High School in Oakhurst and played on the varsity basketball team with Graham and Ash. Their talents went relatively unnoticed in the college recruiting community, mainly because they told their coach not to widely publicize their exploits. Their stats and feats were available in the Sierra News, but the small mountain community was so insular that their exploits did not get much attention. Jezza and his friends grew up in poor families and they viewed athletic scholarships as their only way to receive a good secondary education. All three graduated in 2010 and attended the University of Southern California, having been recruited to the basketball squad by coach Kevin O’Neill. Athletic career Jezza led the 2010-11 USC Trojans men’s basketball team as a 6’3” small forward. Barat played point guard and Wilshere played shooting guard. Other notable players on the team included Nikola Vucevic, center, and Garrett Jackson, power forward. In their first few games, the team shocked the sporting world as three complete unknowns showed flashes of being unprecedentedly great athletes. The Trojans quickly rose to be ranked the number 1 team in the country, when they hadn’t even been on the radar previously. The team formed rivalries with UCLA and Arizona, and they won the PAC-10 tournament outright. They went undefeated on the season and swept the NCAA tournament, defeating the Connecticut Huskies in the national championship. In 2012, the Trojans won the tournament again, defeating the Kentucky Wildcats, who were helmed by Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Jezza was named Most Outstanding Player in both seasons and was voted Associated Press Athlete of the Year in 2011. In spring of 2012, Jezza announced he would be trying out for the U.S. Olympic team to play in London. Most people assumed he meant only to play basketball, but he also tried out for track and field and events. At the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, Jezza held back his true potential in all events but qualified for 18 individual events at the London games, including basketball. At London in July, Jezza’s cultural iconic status came to the international stage. He was jovial, energetic, and his media quotes were poignant. He became an immediate crowd favorite. He made his first Olympic appearance on the basketball court. Playing alongside NBA pros like LeBron James and ____, Jezza stole the show and demolished the competition. His speed was unparalleled and his shooting stroke was majestic. He was both flashy and unselfish. Jezza’s superhuman potential first came on display on August 4 during the long jump and 10,000m events. Jezza would purposefully hold back his true power during the heats to save the excitement for the gold medal events. He was initially not predicted to take first place in the long jump because others had scored higher than him in the heats. At the gold medal event, Jezza jumped 36 feet, 3 inches, more than 7 feet greater than the previous world record set in 1991. It was the biggest world record progression in the competition’s history. Crowds and the media were astounded and in an interview, Jezza said he just liked to save his best for once. Two hours after the long jump, Jezza competed in the 10,000 meters and smashed that world record as well. Jezza went on to obliterate world records in every athletics event: long jump, 10,000 meters, 100m, 3000m steeplechase, 400m, 400m hurdles, 1500m, high jump, 110m hurdles, decathlon, 200m, 800m, triple jump, 4x400m relay, 4x100m relay, 5000m, and the marathon. The United States won 60 gold medals in the Summer Olympics, with Jezza winning almost one-third of them himself. After the Olympics, Jezza became easily the most famous person in the world. However, he still kept a close-knit friend group and prided himself on keeping a low-profile in public. While walking the streets of Los Angeles, he was not accosted the way most celebrities would be, because he kept a friendly demeanor and a genuine love for people that made him neighborly, so there was no need to stop and stare. Jezza was just a cool neighbor, someone you could have a conversation with, not a paragon of unattainable excellence. Jezza and his friends eschewed flashy media interviews and television appearances. During the 2012-13 season, the USC Trojans developed a fierce rivalry with the UCLA Bruins, who had stacked their team with standouts like _____. The Trojans fell to the Bruins once early in the season, and suffered a few other losses as well. At the PAC-10 Championship game, they were considered evenly matched. At the famous “Blood on the Court” game, the Trojans and Bruins went tit for tat on the scoreboard, until, in the waning moments of the 3rd quarter, Bruins forward Shabazz Muhammad speared Jezza in the chest as he went for a slam dunk. Jezza collapsed on the floor and desperately crawled for the bench, clutching his chest and spitting blood on the court. Then he collapsed, unconscious. As medics carted him off, both benches exploded in violence, incited by an inconsolable Graham Barat. At the hospital, it was found that Jezza’s lung had been punctured by his ribs and surgery was immediately performed. He was close to death but the surgery was successful. He was given no timeline for recovery in the context of the NCAA tournament because doctors said it would be impossible for anyone to heal from such a gruesome wound in such a short time. Jezza was determined to return before the tournament ended, as the Trojans were no longer favored to win without his guidance. He defied doctors’ orders on several occasions, developing his own rehabilitation routine which he practiced in the halls of the hospital wing. He argued furiously with doctors over patient freedom, part of the reasons was he had no medical insurance, and his hospital stay gained the attention of the media. On ____, having deemed himself in basketball shape, Jezza escaped his hospital room, and was driven by his brother Chris to _____ for the __ game of the NCAA tournament. The Trojans made it to the Championship game, where they faced off against the UCLA Bruins yet again. It was an almost inconceivable meeting of fate, with Jezza back on the court and Muhammad back from his suspension. Sportswriters dubbed it “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” It had been often speculated whether the three Trojans players would enter the NBA Draft at the end of their college careers. They had all insisted that they were going to finish their degrees and that they had other plans after that. But before the 2013-14 NCAA season, Jezza said that he alone would be declaring for the NBA Draft after the season was over, and he would only play a single season in the NBA. Despite the short time span, the entire NBA was awash with teams vying to grab the best player in the history of the game for one season. By a twist of fate, Jezza’s hometown Golden State Warriors emerged as the frontrunner to get him, having lost their two star players to injury for the entire season. The Trojans won the NCAA title again in 2014, defeating the North Carolina Tar Heels and capping off an incredible 4-year championship streak. The Golden State Warriors won the Draft lottery for 2014 and got the right to select Jezza first overall in the draft. The Philadelphia 76ers got the second pick and Jezza said he would be happy to play for either team: “Philadelphia is a beautiful city with wonderful people.” The Warriors ultimately selected him first overall and the Golden Year began. Jezza bought a house in San Francisco and trained for the NBA season between touring with his band and ___. He did not play in the Summer League as many rookies do. On Christmas Day, Jezza scored 111 points, breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s long-standing 100-point record, which was long thought to be unbreakable. On ____, he broke his own 111-point record, scoring 115 points in a game against the San Antonio Spurs. Went down 3-0 to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder had devised a tight strategy to get revenge on the record-breaking game earlier that season. Jezza’s Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in seven games and won the NBA Championship. Jezza won Finals MVP. For the season, Jezza won Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and MVP. He was also voted 1st team All-NBA. In 2025, Jezza was elected unanimously into the Basketball Hall of Fame. In the years of the Great Divide and World War III, the Hall of Fame did not elect anyone, though Jezza would have been eligible in 2020. In 2028, Jezza served as ambassador to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Jezza always refused calls to play another season in the NBA or enter the Olympics again. He contended that athletics was his way of gaining traction in America. He said that America would never have listened to a twentysomething with crazy ideas unless he was a sports hero. Music career The group’s first album, Woodland Repository, had been given a small release to friends in 2010 with the express instruction to not reveal who made the album. Eventually the songs made it to the Internet and after the 2013 NCAA tournament, Jezza admitted that it was he and his friends behind the mysterious album. Activism Jezza developed his sociopolitical views from _____. “I always felt the need to talk to people about why they viewed the world the way they did. I was always adversarial with my parents, who had different views than me. I couldn’t let it go that they thought differently, because I knew how strongly their actions had affected me. I would go to the Jack in the Box or the McDonald’s and there were old guys there that I knew, cause Oakhurst was a small town. They watched Fox News. They had those views. Sometimes I would talk with them for hours and literally try to change their minds. They were self-protective and angry about a lot of things. From living in a small town, I learned a lot about the conservative ideology. After retiring from the NBA, Warren said of him, “I chose to listen not because he was smarter than me. I could see he had lived a life that was monumentally different from my own, and in living this life, it had given him great insight into the human condition. I saw then that it was not my job to be a politician, but to be the executor of an enormous will, by the people, for the people.” World War III Jezza was captured at Struznica during the Battle of Krmin and sent to Cherkesko prison with his company, though the ___ didn’t know it was him. He and the other prisoners escaped and fled overland through Ukraine, then rejoined the U.N. battle lines at ____. In 2023, Jezza abruptly left the European war to go to Africa. He said the war had broken him and he was no longer interested in commanding men. Jezza fled to a remote region of the Serengeti where he hunted with the Maasai and eventually had to defend an entire village from an invading force of ____. After that incident, Jezza left Africa and rejoined the war in India. After the war, Jezza spent a year teaching __ at ____. Then he went to the forefront of the ____. Wildernization Personal life Growing up near Yosemite National Park, Jezza was always an avid hiker, wildlife enthusiast, and conservationist. Jezza was a great fan of baseball and his hometown team, the Oakland Athletics. He frequently made appearances at games, always cheering hard in the cheap seats among those he called “the most earnest fans.” Jezza had three biological children, Morgenstern Brugger, Angelo Jezza, and Francisco (Fran) Jezza, and also adopted ___, Pierre, Despite his fame, Jezza always kept as low a profile as he could in his personal life. He liked to be a part of a community and in the places he lived, he was well known, not for his celebrity, but for his friendliness as a person. For most of his life, Jezza was the cultural leader of the world, a voice that world leaders sought out, a guru of sorts. But he always kept close friends and tried to live a normal life. His fear of fame is partly why he didn’t release Sierra Club’s first album when it was first completed.